/ 
 
 ANT HO NT IVATNE 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL W. PENNYPACKER 
 
 Printed by 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 
 1908 
 

 Reprinted from the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and 
 Biography, Vol. XXXII 
 
ANTHONY WAYNE/ 
 
 " Egregias animas, quae sanguine nobis banc pa- 
 triam peperere suo, decorate supremis muneribus." 
 
 BY HON, SAMUEL W. PENNYPACKER, LL.D. 
 
 [An address delivered at Valley Forge, June 20, 1908, in the 
 presence of the Pennsylvania Society Sons of the Revolution at the dedi- 
 cation of the equestrian statue of Major General Anthony Wayne, Com- 
 mander-in-Chief United States Army, erected by the Commonwealth.] 
 
 At the close of the unsuccessful campaign of 1777, which 
 had resulted in the capture, by the British under Sir William 
 Howe, of Philadelphia, the capital city of the revolted colo- 
 nies, Washington, in writing, requested the opinions of his 
 generals as to what should be his military policy during the 
 approaching winter. One of them, a brigadier, then thirty- 
 two years of age, after making a full review of the situation, 
 recommended for the army either a camp at Wilmington, 
 " or hutting at the distance of about twenty miles west of 
 Philadelphia." The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, after 
 the lapse of one hundred and thirty-one years, in the pres- 
 ence of the descendants of the men who fought the battles 
 of the Revolution, to-day erects this equestrian statue in 
 
 ^ This study was prepared mainly from original letters of Wayne and 
 the other generals of the Revolution in the library of the Historical 
 Society of Pennsylvania, 
 
 1 
 
2 Anthony Wayne. 
 
 bronze, in memory of him who so accurately forecasted, if 
 he did not determine, the encampment at Valley Forge. 
 She presents him to mankind as a soldier who participated 
 with honor and unusual eclat in nearly every important en- 
 gagement from Canada in the ISTorth to Georgia in the South 
 throughout that struggle, and as the capable general-in-chief 
 of the army of the United States, who later amid vast difficul- 
 ties, and in personal command, brought to a successful result 
 what has proven to be in its consequences one of the most 
 momentous wars in which the country has ever been engaged. 
 
 Anthony "Wayne had other and earlier associations with 
 the Valley Forge. Within four miles of this camp ground, 
 in the Township of Easttown, in the County of Chester, he 
 was born, and from here in 1758 he hauled the hides 
 bought by his father at the store in connection with the 
 forge where the family of Potts hammered out their iron. 
 
 His grandfather, Anthony Wayne, went from Yorkshire, 
 in England, to Ireland, where he fought in the battle of the 
 Boyne among the forces of William III, and he afterward 
 emigrated to Pennsylvania. 
 
 Isaac Wayne, the youngest son of the immigrant, was 
 the owner of a large tract of land in Easttown, which he 
 cultivated and where he had a tannery, and he was beside 
 much concerned in the political controversies of the time. 
 The popular Party, the opponents of the proprietary interests, 
 elected him to the Provincial Assembly for several terms. 
 He had a bitter quarrel with Moore of Moore Hall, an old-time 
 aristocrat and pet of the Governor, both Colonel and Judge, 
 and he has the lasting distinction of being one of the charac- 
 ters portrayed in the Chronicles of Nathan Ben Saddi, 1758, 
 one of the brightest and most spirited bits of literature the 
 American Colonies produced. St. David's Episcopal Church 
 at Kadnor, an ancient shrine where Parson Currie preached 
 and starved, sung about by poets and written about by 
 historians, owed very much to his earnest and loyal support. 
 
 Anthony Wayne, son of Isaac, looming up before us to- 
 day, was born January 1, 1745, and grew to young man- 
 
Anthony Wayne. 3 
 
 liood upon his father's plantation of over five hundred 
 acres, and about the tannery, traces of which still remain. 
 He had the benefit of a somewhat desultory education re- 
 ceived from an uncle living in the country, and he spent 
 two years in Philadelphia at the academy out of which arose 
 the University of Pennsylvania. The bent of his mind 
 even in boyhood was to mathematics rather than to literar 
 ture. At the time of the French and Indian war, wherein 
 his father had served as a captain, he was at an age when 
 startling events make their strongest and most lasting im- 
 pressions, and in his sport he discarded balls and marbles 
 to construct intrenchments and engage in mimic battles. 
 At the academy he studied surveying and determined to 
 make that occupation the pursuit of his life. An elaborate 
 and somewhat artistic survey of the Township of Vincent, 
 in Chester County, made by him in 1774, is preserved in 
 the library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and 
 liis correspondence relating to military afiairs is often illus- 
 trated with the plans which he drew. 
 
 In 1765, when in his twenty-first year, in association with 
 Matthew Clarkson; John Hughes, the stamp collector; Wil- 
 liam Smith, the creator of the university ; William Moore 
 of Moore Hall; Joseph Richardson, captain in the French 
 and Indian war; Benjamin Franklin; Israel Jacobs, after- 
 ward a member of Congress; and others of the leading men 
 of the province, he participated in an eflEbrt to found a 
 colony in Canada. One hundred thousand acres of land 
 on the St. John's River and a tract of like extent on the 
 Peticoodiac River were granted to them. A town was 
 located, lots were sold, and settlers were transported. 
 Wayne went to Canada with Benjamin Jacobs as the sur- 
 veyor for the company, and spent the summers of 1765 
 and 1766 there, but the enterprise resulted in failure, and 
 at the time of his death he still owned his proportion of 
 these lands. To some extent his activities found expression 
 in a civil career. In several of the conventions which took 
 the preliminary steps leading up to the Revolutionary War, 
 
4 Anthony Wayne. 
 
 he as a delegate bore an active part; in 1775 he was a mem- 
 ber of the Committee of Safety; for three years he sat in 
 the Assembly, and he was a member of the Council of Cen- 
 sors, and of the Pennsylvania Convention Avhich ratified the 
 Constitution of the United States. These public services, 
 important as they may have been, were only incidental and 
 subsidiary in determining the value of the labors of his life. 
 
 With the first breath of the coming war blowing from the 
 northward in 1775, the instincts of the soldier plunged him 
 into the field and he organized a regiment of " minute men" 
 in Chester County. 
 
 On the 4th of January, 1776, he was appointed Colonel 
 of the Fourth Pennsylvania Regiment. This regiment, to- 
 gether with the Second and Sixth, was formed into a brigade 
 under the command of General Wm. Thompson, and hur- 
 ried away to Canada. Montgomery had been killed, Arnold 
 had been defeated in an assault upon Quebec, and that army 
 badly needed help. The forces from far away Pennsylvania 
 reached them on the fifth of June at the mouth of the Sorel, 
 betv/een Quebec and Montreal, whither they had retreated. 
 Sullivan, who w^as in command, a week later ordered 
 Thompson with 1450 men, all of them Pennsylvanians 
 except a battalion from New Jersey under Maxwell, to 
 attack a force of British estimated to be four hundred 
 strong, at Three Rivers, forty-seven miles down the St. 
 Lawrence. Instead of being a surprise, as had been ex- 
 pected, the effort resulted in an encounter with three thou- 
 sand men under Burgoyne. After a march of nine miles 
 through a swamp under fire from the boats in the river, 
 with Wayne in the advance, the gallant troops pushed their 
 way up to the breastworks of the enemy, before unknown, 
 and then were compelled to retreat. Thompson, Irvine and 
 other officers had been captured ; three hundred and fifty 
 men had been lost, but Anthony Wayne had fought his first 
 battle and received the first of many wounds, and they had 
 " saved the army in Canada." Two days later he wrote 
 cheerily " our people are in high spirits and long for another 
 
Anthony Wayne. 5 
 
 bout." Nevertheless the army was in full retreat to Ticon- 
 deroga, and already Wayne, left in command of the Penn- 
 sylvania troops, had found the place of danger. Wilkinson 
 tells that Allen said to him, "Colonel Wayne is in the 
 rear," and if anybody could render assistance, " he is the 
 man," that he found " the gallant soldier as much at his 
 ease as if he were marching to a parade at exercise," and 
 that when mistaken for the enemy by Sullivan, he " pulled 
 out his glass and seemed to enjoy the panic." 
 
 Already he had made his mark. On the 18th of Novem- 
 ber, General Schuyler gave him the command of Fort 
 Ticonderoga, at that time, since the British had in view a 
 separation of the country by an advance from Canada, one 
 of the most important of our military posts, and placed him 
 at the head of a force of twenty-five hundred men. " It was 
 my business," he says in one of his letters, " to prevent a 
 junction of the enemy's armies and .... to keep at bay 
 their whole Canadian force." 
 
 He remained at Ticonderoga until April 12th, 1777. His 
 stay there covered that depressing period of the war prior 
 to the battle of Trenton, during which Washington was 
 defeated at Long Island, three thousand men were lost with 
 Fort Washington, and the main army, its officers retiring 
 and its rank and file deserting, was threatened with entire 
 disintegration. Difficulties accumulated around him. The 
 terms of service of his soldiers expired, and to fill their 
 places became almost impossible. Some of the soldiers, who 
 came into camp from the Eastern States, on one occasion 
 deserted the same night. Recruiting officers from the same 
 part of the country were endeavoring to secure enlistments 
 even in his own regiment. He was holding men three weeks 
 after their terms of service were ended. Hearing that a 
 company, claiming their enlistments to have expired the 
 month before, were on the march for home, he halted them 
 and called for their leader. A sergeant stepped to the front. 
 " I presented a pistol to his breast. He fell on his knees to 
 beg his life. I then ordered the whole to ground their 
 
6 Anthony Wayne. 
 
 arms," and they obeyed. A certain Josiah Holliday en- 
 deavored again to incite them to mutiny, whereupon Wa3^ne 
 " thought proper to chastise him for his insolence on the 
 spot, before the men," or as Holliday himself puts it, did 
 " shamefully beat and abuse him." The captain interfered 
 and was placed under arrest for abetting a mutiny. 
 
 The garrison had dwindled in numbers and one-third of 
 them were Negroes, Indians and children. The enemy 
 were threatening his own home in distant Chester County, 
 and the only comfort he could give his wife " Polly," the 
 daughter of Bartholomew Penrose, was to tell her: " Should 
 you be necessitated to leave Easttown, I doubt not but you'll 
 meet with hospitality in the back parts of the Province," 
 and yet never for an instant did he falter. He had studied 
 the campaigns of Caesar and Marshal Saxe, and he believed 
 that too much attention was given to forming lines and too 
 little to disciplining and manceuvring : that "the only good 
 lines are those nature made," and that American liberty 
 would never be established until the army learned " to beat 
 the English Rebels in the field." He constructed an abattis 
 around the fort, octagons upon the top of an adjacent mount, 
 built two new block-houses to render the station tenable and 
 secure, and then he wrote to Schuyler asking to be sent to 
 the South in order to meet " those Sons of War and rapine 
 face to face and man to man." He added : " These worthy 
 fellows [his Pennsylvania comrades] are second to none in 
 courage. I have seen them proved and I know they are 
 not far behind any regulars in point of discipline. Such 
 troops actuated by principle, and fired with just resentment, 
 must be an acceptable and perhaps seasonable reenforcement 
 to General "Washington at this critical juncture." 
 
 He received a commission as brigadier general February 
 21, 1777, and two months later Washington, then in New 
 Jersey, wrote to him, " Your presence here will be mate- 
 rially wanted." For nearly a year he had successfully 
 maintained the post at Ticonderoga, which was surrendered 
 almost as soon as he had departed, and had confronted the 
 
Anthony Wayne. 7 
 
 proposed advance of the army under Burgoyne, and now 
 after " the charming Miss Schuyler" had made him a new 
 cockade, he hastened to Morristown to take command of 
 the Pennsylvania Line in the army of Washington. Just as 
 within the memories of some of us, who are here present, 
 Pennsylvania during the War of the Rebellion, alone of all 
 the States, had an entire division in the service, known as 
 the Pennsylvania Reserves, in like manner there were in 
 the Continental service throughout the War of the Revolu- 
 tion, thirteen regiments, distinguished for their gallantry 
 and efficiency in the many battles of that sanguinary strug- 
 gle, which came from the same State, and were united into 
 two divisions, designated as the Pennsylvania Line. Eight 
 of these regiments were placed under the command of 
 Wayne. Washington was then encamped on the heights 
 of Middlebrook, whence he could look toward the Hudson 
 on the one side and the Delaware on the other, should 
 Howe show a disposition to move in either direction. He 
 needed a general, active, alert and intelligent, with a force 
 upon which dependence could be placed to cover the stretch 
 of country between West Point and Philadelphia. He sent 
 for Wayne and posted him in front, giving him charge of 
 the pass on the most important road leading to and from 
 the camp. Within three weeks an opportunity arose. A 
 detachment of the British army advanced as far as Bruns- 
 wick. Wayne made an attack upon these forces on the 
 second of May, and after pushing them from one redoubt 
 to another, finally drove them within their lines at Amboy. 
 He reported to the Board of War : " The conduct of the 
 Pennsylvanians the other day in forcing General Grant to 
 retire with circumstances of shame and disgrace into the 
 very lines of the enemy, has gained them the esteem of his 
 excellency," and Benjamin Rush wrote : " The pubHc have 
 done you justice for your gallant behavior in checking the 
 prowess of Mr. Grant." The brave soldiers who achieved 
 this success and were so praised for their efforts had never 
 received any uniforms except hunting shirts, which were 
 
8 Anthony Wayne. 
 
 then worn out, but it is a comfort to know that about this 
 time Sally Peters sent to Wayne by wagon, "ajar of pickled 
 oysters," and he was enabled to buy three gallons and five 
 quarts of Madeira Avine. Graydon, who sought the camp, 
 tells us that he " entertained a most sovereign contempt for 
 the enemy," but that he, who had been accustomed to 
 ' appear in exemplary neatness of apparel, was now dressed 
 " in a dingy red coat, a black, rusty cravat, and tarnished 
 lace hat." Only dire necessity could have' caused the con- 
 dition of his attire, for he still maintained that " pride in a 
 soldier is a substitute for almost every other virtue," 
 
 At last Howe, who had been waiting in the vain hope 
 that Washington would cease clinging to the heights and 
 would make the blunder of coming down on to the plain 
 to fight him, determined upon an aggressive policy. On 
 the twenty-fourth of July, Washington wrote to Wayne, 
 *' The fleet have just gone out of the Hook, and as Dela- 
 ware appears to be the most probable destination, I desire 
 you will leave your brigade, go to Chester and organize the 
 militia of Pennsylvania." He gathered them together into 
 three brigades, probably three thousand in number, since 
 one of them had thirteen hundred and fifty-six men, and 
 put them under the command of John Armstrong, the hero 
 of the famous battle and victory over the Indians at Kittan- 
 ning in 1756. " Time at last sets all things even," and a 
 descendant of Armstrong is here to-day, one of the Com- 
 missioners charged with the duty of erecting this statue. 
 The celebrated Elizabeth Graeme, whom Aunt Gainor, 
 in " Hugh Wynne," called " That cat Bessie Ferguson," 
 scratched at him after this fashion : " Two suttlers in the 
 rear of your division inticed my slave with them, with my 
 wagon and two very fine oxen . . . the heat of the 
 weather and the violent manner the poor beasts were drove 
 occasioned one of them to drop down dead." 
 
 He wanted to see his family, from whom he had long 
 been separated — they were now not very distant — but an 
 early battle was anticipated, and he had been peremptorily 
 
Anthony Wayne. 9 
 
 forbidden by "Washington to leave the army and ordered to 
 hasten at the head of his division to Wilmington. The 
 duties of three generals Avere imposed upon him, and 3^et 
 his thought not limited to their performance was busy with 
 plans for the campaign. He feared the enemy might reach 
 the cit}^ by the fords near the Falls of Schuylkill, and in 
 order to prevent such a contingenc}^ proposed to march for- 
 ward and give them battle. On the second of September 
 he recommended to Washington that three thousand of the 
 best armed and disciplined troops make a regular and vig- 
 orous assault on one of the flanks of the enemy, trusting to 
 surprise for success, and added : " I wish to be of the num- 
 ber assigned for this business.'" The suggestion was not 
 adopted, but a week later Howe pursued precisely this plan 
 at Brandywine and won a decided victory. In that memo- 
 rable engagement, Wayne, with his division, was on the left 
 upon the east bank of the Brandywine where Chad's Ford 
 offered a means of crossing the creek. Throughout the 
 entire day he maintained his position, preventing the advance 
 of Knyphausen, and occasionally sending detachments to 
 the opposite shore, but the right wing under Sullivan and 
 Greene had been turned and crushed, and at sunset, find- 
 ing that he was becoming enmeshed between Howe on the 
 front and the fortunate Cornwallis in the rear, he in good 
 order retired. The steadfastness on the left saved the right 
 from entire destruction. 
 
 On the eighteenth, Washington, then at Reading Furnace, 
 on the French Creek, in Chester County, and expecting to 
 cross the Schuylkill River, determined to detach a part of 
 his forces to harass the rear of the enemy while he, with 
 the main army, should defend the fords. Such a plan neces- 
 sarily involved the separation of the army with a river be- 
 tween, the close proximity of the harassing force to the 
 enemy, and the danger of an attack upon this force by over- 
 whelming numbers. That such risks were not unrecognized 
 is shown by the letter of Washington written from Pott's 
 Grove, September 28rd, before he had learned of the affair 
 
10 Anthony Wayne. 
 
 at Paoli, recalling the order and saying : " Should we con- 
 tinue detached and in a divided state I fear we shall neither 
 be able to attack or defend ourselves." However, he selected 
 Wayne for this dangerous service, gave him twelve to fifteen, 
 hundred men, and wrote to him on the eighteenth : " I must 
 call your utmost exertion in fitting yourselves in the best 
 manner you can for following and harrassing their rear," 
 and saying further : " The army here is so much fatigued 
 that it is impossible I should move them this afternoon." 
 Evidently anxious, he the same day recites : " Having wrote 
 tAvice to you already to move forward." Celerity and secrecy 
 were both necessary for the success of such a venture. Un- 
 happily these two letters referred to had both fallen into 
 the hands of the enemy. This fact alone would have been 
 fatal. Wayne, being informed that the British were about 
 to march for the Schuylkill on the twenty-first, took a posi- 
 tion on the high ground near Paoli, within four miles of the 
 enemy, and there he established six pickets and a horse 
 picket to patrol the road. At eleven o'clock on the night 
 of the twentieth. General Grey, with a much superior force, 
 attacked him. He held the ground for an hour and saved 
 his artillery, but lost one hundred and fifty men killed and 
 wounded and had met with the only defeat of his career. 
 A court-martial called at his request found that he deserved 
 the " highest honor " as " an active, brave and vigilant of- 
 ficer." Rumor ran through the neighborhood that he had 
 been killed, that he had been taken prisoner, and that his 
 life had been saved through his hurry in putting on his coat 
 with the red lining outside. That same night a squad of 
 British marched to his house, thrust their bayonets into a 
 huge boxwood bush that still grows and thrives in the yard, 
 " but behaved with the utmost politeness to the women." 
 
 Not in the least daunted, at the Council of War attended 
 by twenty generals, held before Germantown at Penny- 
 packer's Mills on the twenty-ninth, he, with four others, 
 was in favor of again giving battle. There can be little 
 doubt that the spirit he displayed at this time, as upon 
 
Anthony Wayne, 11 
 
 every other occasion, had its effect upon his companions 
 and was influential in bringing about that change to a more 
 aggressive policy which led to the results at Germantown, 
 Monmouth and Yorktown. " The enemy's being in posses- 
 sion of Philadelphia," he said, " is of no more consequence 
 than their being in possession of the City of New York or 
 Boston." On the eve of Germantown he wrote : <' I have the 
 most happy presage of entering Philadelphia at the head of 
 troops covered with laurels before the close of the day." 
 The value of such vitality to a defeated army at the close 
 of a lost campaign cannot be overestimated. 
 
 At Germantown his division encountered and attacked 
 the right wing of the British army to the east of the town, 
 charged with bayonets, crying out for " Paoli and revenge," 
 put the enemy to rout and pursued them for three miles, 
 killing with little mercy those who were overcome. On the 
 retreat of the Americans, after the check at the Chew House 
 and the confusion caused by the fog, he was in the rear and 
 with cannon and musketry brought to an end Howe's at- 
 tempted pursuit. The British General Hunter, in his his- 
 tory, records : " General Wayne commanded the advance. 
 . . . Had we not retreated at the time we did, we should 
 all have been taken or killed. . . But this was the first 
 time we had ever retreated from the Americans," and he 
 asserts that Howe, swept by passion, shouted, " For shame 
 , . . I never saw you retreat before," but the rattle of 
 grape through the limbs of a chestnut tree under which he 
 stood convinced him, also, of the necessity. Wayne's theory 
 that the liberty of America would be secured when the 
 British were taught respect upon the field of battle, was 
 taking a concrete form. At eight o'clock that night, ap- 
 parently unwearied by the great exertions of the day, he 
 wrote to Washington, hoping for " their total defeat the 
 next tryal, which I wioh to see brought to issue the soonest 
 possible." Two days later he wrote from Pennypacker's 
 Mills a long letter to his wife, as remarkable as it was 
 characteristic. He gave in detail the military movements of 
 
12 Anthony Wayne. 
 
 the battle, which evidently absorbed his thought. There was, 
 nevertheless, one series of incidents, of minor importance 
 no doubt to him if not to her, which had been overlooked. 
 They suddenly occurred to him as he closed. " I had for- 
 gotten to mention that my roan horse was killed under me 
 within a few yards of the enemy's front, . . . and my left 
 foot a little bruised by one of their cannon shot. ... I 
 had a slight touch on my left hand. ... It was a glor- 
 ious day." 
 
 On the twenty-seventh of October, in response to a query 
 from Washington as to whether it would be prudent to at- 
 tempt to dislodge the enemy, he recommended that an im- 
 mediate attack be made, and he advanced as reasons for his 
 opinion that the ground was not disadvantageous, that the 
 shipping in the river could assist, that in the event of failure 
 they had a stretch of open country to which to retire, that 
 if no attempt were made the forts on the Delaware must fall, 
 aifording the enemy comfortable quarters, and finally that 
 the Americans would be forced from the field, or lose more 
 b}^ sickness and desertion in a naked, discontented army 
 than in an action. The subsequent evacuation of Fort 
 Mifflin, with loss of control of the Delaware, and the ex- 
 periences at Valley Forge seemed to justify at least some 
 of his conclusions. Fort Mifflin on the west bank of the 
 Delaware had been besieged for six weeks, the British had 
 erected works on Province Island, near enough to threaten 
 the fort, when Wayne was ordered with his division and the 
 corps of Morgan to "storm the enemy's lines, spike their 
 cannon, and ruin their works." Wayne gladly undertook 
 the difficult and dangerous task, but the day before the efft^rt 
 was to have been made the fort was abandoned. Another 
 Council of War was held November the twenty-fourth and 
 the same question broached. Wayne was decided in his 
 view that the credit of the army, the safety of the country, 
 the honor of American arms, the approach of winter, and 
 the depreciation of the currency made it necessary to give 
 battle to the enemy, and he advised that the army march 
 
Anthony Wayne. 13 
 
 the next morning to the upper end of Germantown. He 
 admitted the hazard and the undoubted loss of hfe, but 
 believed that the bold course would prove to be the most 
 eifective. 
 
 His life at Valley Forge, where his division occupied the 
 centre of the outer line, was an unceasing struggle to secure 
 recruits and sufficient arms to equip and clothing to cover 
 his soldiers. JSTearly all of the deaths and desertions, he 
 says, were due to nakedness and dirt. He did not want 
 rifles, but muskets mth bayonets, believing that the mere 
 consciousness of the possession of a bayonet gave a sense of 
 security, and that without being used it was an element of 
 safety. Provisions grew to be scarce and he was sent with 
 five hundred and fifty men to the agricultural regions of 
 Few Jersey to collect cattle for the army. On one occasion 
 he sent to the camp one hundred and fifty cattle and thirty 
 horses. With the British, who crossed the Delaware from 
 Philadelphia upon a like errand, he, and Count Pulaski at 
 the head of fifty horse, had a combat of some severity in 
 the neighborhood of Haddonfield, and another at Cooper's 
 Ferry. ISTot only did he succeed in feeding the army, but 
 his energetic movements became the subject of a ribald 
 poem, entitled, " The Cow Chase," written by John Andre, 
 the vivacious adjutant general of the British army, in which 
 to some extent the author foreshadowed his own unhappy 
 fate, should he fall into the hands of Wayne, 
 
 On the return of Wayne to the camp at Valley Forge he, on 
 the twenty-first of April, 1778, again urged upon Washing- 
 ton that " many reasons, in my humble opinion, both politi- 
 cal and prudential, point to the expediency of putting the 
 enemy on the defensive." He recommended making an 
 effort against Howe or ISTew York, saying, " Whatever part 
 may be assigned to me, I shall alwaj-s, and at all times, be 
 ready to serve you." Ere long his wish was gratified. The 
 British, fearing a blockade of the Delaware River by the 
 French fleet, were about to evacuate Philadelphia. Again 
 Washington called a Council of War. The advice of Wayne 
 
14 Anthony Wayne. 
 
 was " that the whole of the army be put in motion the soon- 
 est possible for some of the ferries on the Delaware above 
 Trent Town, so as to be ready to act as soon as the enemy's 
 movement shall be ascertained," and then if the North 
 River should prove to be their objective point " take the 
 first favorable opportunity to make a vigorous and serious 
 attack." Manifestly his earnestness of purpose was having 
 its effect, since this was the course a few days afterward 
 pursued. 
 
 At another Council of War held on the twenty-fourth of 
 June, Wayne and Cadwalader, the two Pennsylvanians 
 alone, supported to some extent by Lafayette and Greene, 
 declared in favor of active and aggressive measures. On 
 this occasion Wayne had his way, and two days afterward 
 the two armies were within a few miles of each other and 
 about to come into contact. Washington determined to 
 attack the rear guard of the enemy, which was protecting 
 the baggage train, and sent General Charles Lee, with five 
 thousand men, among whom was Wayne, five miles in 
 advance with this purpose in view. Lee ordered Wayne, 
 telling him that his was the post of honor, to lead the ad- 
 vance, and with seven hundred men to assail the left rear 
 of the British. Before, however, this movement could be 
 accomplished, they assumed the aggressive. A charge by 
 Simcoe's Rangers upon Butler's Pennsylvania regiment 
 was repulsed, but reenforcements in great numbers came to 
 their assistance. At this time, while Wayne was engaged 
 in a desperate struggle, the heart of Lee failed him, and he 
 marched his men not forward in support, but about face to 
 the rear. His excuse was that the temerity of Wayne had 
 brought upon him " the whole flower of the British Army, 
 Grenadiers, Light Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery, amount- 
 ing in all to seven thousand men." Washington, meeting- 
 Lee in retreat, in anger assumed command and ordered 
 Wayne, who to avoid capture had been compelled to follow, 
 to take Craig's Third Pennsylvania, Irvine's Seventh Penn- 
 sylvania, Stewart's Thirteenth Pennsylvania, a Maryland 
 
Anthony Wayne. 15 
 
 regiment and a regiment from Virginia and check the 
 pursuit. Holding a position in an orchard, between two 
 hills near the parsonage of Monmouth, they repelled two 
 determined onsets and gained time for the occupation ot 
 the high ground by the forces sent to the front by Wash- 
 ington. Finally Colonel Henry Monckton, brother of Lord 
 Galway, after a brief speech appealing to the pride, and 
 calling attention to the brilHant services of the British 
 Guards, led them forward in a bayonet charge, with im- 
 petuous fury, against the troops of Wayne. They were 
 unable to withstand the withering fire they encountered 
 and, driven back in confusion, left the dead body of the 
 Colonel on the field. Other efforts were continued for 
 more than an hour, but in vain. The elite of the British 
 Army and the ragged Continentals from the huts of Valley 
 Forge had met upon the plains of Monmouth and the fame 
 of the deeds of Anthony Wayne was nevermore to fade 
 from the memories of men. "Pennsylvania showed the 
 road to victory" was the expression of what was probably 
 his keenest gratification. "I cannot forbear mentioning 
 Brigadier General Wayne, whose conduct and bravery 
 through the whole action deserves particular commenda- 
 tion," was the stately and subdued comment of George 
 Washington. Later a duel with Lee, which these events 
 threatened, was happily averted. 
 
 After the exertions of Monmouth there was a long lull 
 in military activities. The British held possession of New 
 York, and the army of Washington, stretched across New 
 Jersey, kept watch upon their movements. Throughout 
 this period of inaction the difliculties of the Continental 
 Army in maintaining the numbers of the rank and file, in 
 supplying them with pay, arms, clothing and provisions, in 
 arranging the grades of the ofiicers, were serious and so 
 continuous as to become chronic. On the fifth of October, 
 1778, Wayne wrote to Robert Morris: ''By the first of 
 January we shall have more Continental troops in the field 
 than any other State in the whole Confederacy, but not as 
 
16 Anthony Wayne. 
 
 many general officers." At this time Pennsylvania had 
 two brigades with the main army, three hundred men with 
 Colonel Butler on the Mohawk, three hundred men with 
 Colonel Brodhead at Pittsburg, and a regiment with Colonel 
 Hartley at Sunbury. The service, according to Wayne, 
 promised nothing " but indigence and want." The pay 
 had become a mere vox et praeterea nihil. The Clothier 
 General of the army refused to furnish them with clothing, 
 giving as a reason that, unlike the other States, they had 
 their own State Clothier. When his men burned some 
 fences to keep themselves warm, Scamell, the aide to Lord 
 Stirling, proceeded to read him a lecture. " In case he (the 
 Major General) is obliged to repeat the orders again, he 
 shall be under the disagreeable necessity of pointing out 
 the Pennsylvania troops in particular," said Scamell in a 
 reflected lordly fashion. Wayne, entirely able to hold his 
 own, and ever ready to support his troops, replied : "During 
 the very severe storm from Christmas to ISTew Year's, whilst 
 our people lay without any cover except their old tents, and 
 when the drifting of snow prevented the green wood from 
 taking fire," yes, they burned some rails, but fifty men had 
 first been frostbitten. The other troops " were either cooped 
 in huts or cantoned in houses. . . It is not new to the 
 Pennsylvanians to be taken notice of in general orders." 
 It was always his efifort to keep them " well and comfort- 
 able," and no commander ever had more trustful and devoted 
 followers. 
 
 When Doctor Jones sent to him a bear skin, he was de- 
 lighted. Occasionally his thoughts wandered toward his 
 home. To Polly he sent ''A tierce of beer, some rock fish and 
 oysters with a little good fresh beef," saying, " I would ad- 
 vise you to make immediate use of the fish." Again he 
 wrote to her, " I am not a little anxious about the education 
 of our girl and boy. It is full time that Peggy should be 
 put to the dancing school. How does she improve in her 
 writing and reading ? Does Isaac take learning freely ? 
 Has he become fond of school ?" 
 
Anthony Wayne. lY 
 
 Though Wayne had long with the greatest measure of 
 success commanded a division, his rank and pay were only 
 those of a brigadier, and he never throughout the Revolu- 
 tion received the advancement to which his services were 
 entitled. Skill in securing recognition and compensation is 
 an art in itself often quite apart from those qualities which 
 accomplish great achievements. The man who is really 
 intent upon his work often forgets the reward. And now 
 his superior, St, Clair, that unfortunate general who had 
 surrendered Ticonderoga, and who for some occult reason 
 appears to have ever been a favorite with those in authority, 
 came to take charge of the Pennsylvania hue, Wayne, after 
 having been promised command of the Light Lifantry soon 
 to be organized, and bearing with him the w^ritten and eager 
 statement of his colonels, Harmar, Stewart and the rest, 
 that his recent effort had "riveted the hearts of all ranks 
 more iirmly" to him and had rendered his " name more dear 
 to the whole line," returned to Pennsylvania. His rest was 
 not for long, Washington pondered over the possibilities of 
 a desperate deed of " derring-doe" requiring military intelli- 
 gence and personal courage of the highest character, and in 
 its consideration in all probability weighed the qualities of 
 every general then in the field Avith him. One day, June 
 24th, 1779, Wayne was in Philadelphia on his way to greet 
 his family at Easttown, when a post rider gave him a des- 
 patch from Washington with the suggestive words :" I re- 
 quest that you join the army as soon as you can," Polly 
 must forego the greeting and be left to her loneliness, and 
 it meant a long farewell. 
 
 Stony Point, a rugged promontory covered with rock and 
 wood, extending into the Hudson River for half a mile from 
 the western shore Hne and rising to a height of one hundred 
 and fifty feet, stood " like a solitary sentinel, ever keeping 
 watch and ward over the gateway of the Highlands. Bend- 
 mg around its western base, and separating it from the 
 mainland, a marsh sometimes to the depth of two feet crept 
 from an entrance in the river to the north to an outlet in 
 
18 Anthony Wayne. 
 
 the river to the south. An island fortress hkened often in 
 its strength and conformation to Gibraltar, it seemed to 
 present insurmountable obstacles to any attacking force and 
 with quiet and sardonic frown to threaten destruction. Upon 
 the summit the British had erected a series of redoubts and 
 had placed seven or eight disconnected batteries, while im- 
 mediately below them an abattis extended the entire length 
 of the crest. Within this fortification were four companies 
 of the Seventeenth Regiment of Infantry, one company of 
 American tories and a detachment of the Royal Artillery. 
 About one-third of the way down the hill from the summit 
 ran a second line of abattis, supported by three redoubts, on 
 which were brass twelve-pound cannon defended by two 
 companies of the Seventeenth Regiment and two companies 
 of Grenadiers. At the foot of the hill near the morass were 
 five pickets, and the British vessels of war, which rode in the 
 river, were able to sweep with their guns the low ground of 
 the approaches. Four brass and four iron cannon, one 
 howitzer and five mortars, amply supplied with ammunition, 
 were at the service of the garrison, which consisted of over 
 six hundred of the best disciplined and most trustworthy 
 troops of the British army," commanded by a capable and 
 gallant officer. At half after eleven o'clock on the night of 
 July 15th, 1779, thirteen hundred and fifty men with bay- 
 onets fixed, and likewise " fresh shaved and well powdered," 
 were waiting with Anthony Wayne on the farther side of 
 the marsh to storm this formidable fortification. It was a 
 most difi&cult undertaking, and the entire responsibility for 
 the plan to be pursued, and the time and manner of carrying 
 it out, rested upon Wayne. " So soon as you have fixed 
 your plan and the time of execution I shall be obliged to 
 you to give me notice," Washington wrote to him on the 
 tenth of July, to which Wayne replied on the fourteenth, "I 
 shall do myself the honor to enclose you the plan and dis- 
 position to-morrow." He determined upon an assault by 
 two columns, one on the right and one on the left, each to 
 consist of one hundred and fifty men with arms unloaded, 
 
Anthony Wayne. 19 
 
 depending solely upon their bayonets, each preceded at the 
 distance of sixty feet by a " forlorn hope," consisting of an 
 officer and twenty men, while a force in the centre were to 
 attract attention by a fire of musketry, but to make only a 
 simulated attack. Never in the whole history of mankind 
 has there occurred a situation which gives more forcibly the 
 impression of absolute solemnity — the silence — the stern 
 resolution of the musket grip — the morass in front, with its 
 hidden uncertainties — the dangers and hopes that lay beyond 
 on the threatening mount, and the deep darkness of the 
 midnight. Wayne made his preparations for death. At 
 eleven o'clock he sent certain roughly drawn papers to his 
 dearest friend. " This will not meet your eye until the 
 writer is no more. ... I know that friendship will 
 induce you to attend to the education of my little son and 
 daughter. I fear that their mother will not survive this 
 stroke. Do go to her. ... I am called to sup, but 
 where to breakfast, either within the enemy's lines in tri- 
 umph or in the other world," were some of the utterances 
 wrung from a burdened soul. On the way up the mount, 
 iust beyond the first abattis, he was struck by a ball which 
 cut a gash two inches in length across his face and head, 
 and felled him senseless to the ground. It was no light 
 wound. Long afterward he was weak from the loss of 
 blood which streamed over him. Three weeks later his 
 mental faculties were still benumbed. Six weeks later it 
 was yet unhealed. As soon as he regained consciousness 
 he called aloud : " Lead me forward. . . Let me die in 
 the fort," but continued to direct the movements with the 
 point of his spear. In a few moments the words which he 
 had adopted as a signal, " The Fort's our own," rang over 
 the parapet ; at two o'clock in the morning Wayne sent a 
 despatch to Washington almost as laconic as the message 
 of Ceesar : " The fort and garrison, -with Colonel Johnston, 
 are ours. Our officers and men behaved like men deter- 
 mined to be free"; of the twenty-one men in the "forlorn 
 hope" led by Lieutenant James Gibbons, of Philadelphia, 
 
20 Anthony Wayne. 
 
 seventeen had been shot; and a valorous feat of arms, un- 
 equalled in American annals, either before or since, ending 
 in brilliant success, had caught the attention of the entire 
 world to hold it forevermore. 
 
 At that time the laws of war permitted a garrison taken 
 by storm to be put to the sword, and memory recalls more 
 than one British victory in that and later wars stained with 
 such cruelty. It is a great glory of Stony Point that no 
 poor wretch cried for mercy in vain, and that all who sub- 
 mitted were saved. As an achievement more important 
 than the capture of a stronghold and the exhibition of 
 valor and military skill was the fact that it created confi 
 dence and selt-respect, and aroused a sense of state and 
 national pride, public virtues as much needed then as they 
 are to-day. The calm Washington in a despatch to Con- 
 gress said that the conduct of Wayne " through the whole 
 of this arduous enterprise merits the warmest approbation," 
 and the more impulsive Greene declared that the event 
 would " immortalize General Wayne" as it would do honor 
 to the first general in Europe. Girard, the French minis- 
 ter, wrote : ''The most rare qualities were found united;" 
 John Jay, " You have nobly reaped laurels in the cause of 
 your country and in the fields of danger and death;" Sharp 
 Delaney, "At a Town Meeting yesterday you had all our 
 hats and hands in repeated acclamation ;" Benjamin Rush, 
 " Our streets for many days rung with nothing but the name 
 of General Wayne;" Colonel Spotswood, of Virginia, "The 
 greatest stroke that has been struck this war;" General 
 Adam Stephens, "You have added dignity to the American 
 arms and acquired immortal renown;" Colonel Sherman, 
 that his name would " be coeval with the annals of Ameri- 
 can history;" Lafayette, that it was a "Glorious affair;" 
 Steuben, " This gallant action would fix the character of 
 the commanding officer in any part of the world;" General 
 Lee, " I do most sincerely declare that your action in the 
 assault on Stony Point is not only the most brilliant in my 
 opinion through the whole course of this war on either side, 
 
Anthony Wayne. 21 
 
 but that it is one of the most brilliant I am acquainted with 
 in histor}^," and the English commodore, George Collier, 
 that " The rebels had made the attack with a bravery they 
 never before exhibited and they showed at the moment a 
 generosity and clemency which during the course of the 
 rebellion had no parallel." The poet sang: 
 
 "Each soldier darts amain 
 And every youth with ardor burns 
 To emulate our Wayne." 
 
 The Assembly of Pennsylvania and the Supreme Execu- 
 tive Council passed resolutions thanking Wayne and the 
 Pennsylvania line for "the honor they have reflected on 
 the State to which they belong," and Congress, praising his 
 " brave, prudent and soldier like conduct," ordered a gold 
 medal to be presented to him, to be made in France under 
 the supervision of Dr. Franklin. In the very nature of 
 things such an event could not occur without producing an 
 efiect upon the relations of Wayne to the other officers of 
 the army, in some instances enhancing their esteem and in 
 others, it is to be feared, arousing their envy, and without 
 influencing his personal fortunes. He turned sharply upon 
 Return Jonathan Meigs, of Connecticut, with : " I don't 
 wish to incur any gentleman's displeasure. I put up with 
 no man's insults." Twice within the next six weeks Wash- 
 ington dined with him and referring to a recent incident in 
 the conduct of military aft'airs, paid him this high compli- 
 ment: " I had resolved to attempt the same enterprise, to 
 be executed in the same manner you mention." The minds 
 of the two men had come to be in an entire accord. About 
 the same time he ordered : " One pair of elegant gold epau- 
 lets, superfine bufi:' sufiicient to face two uniform coats, with 
 hair and silk, four dozen best yellow gilt coat buttons, plain 
 and buft' color lining suitable to the facing of one coat." 
 
 There was an officer in the army holding the high rank 
 of a major general for whom Wayne had long held an un- 
 concealed hostility, and whose conduct he viewed with sus- 
 
22 Anthony Wayne. 
 
 picion. " I ever entertained the most despicable opinion 
 of his abilities." "He had neither tortitude or personal 
 courage other than what the bowl or glass supplied," were 
 the comments of Wayne. At Morristown the ofHcers of 
 the Pennsylvania line had refused to serve under his 
 command. Atter this officer, Benedict Arnold, of Con- 
 necticut, had in 1780 planned to give possession of West 
 Point to the enemy and the complot with Clinton had been 
 discovered, while it was still uncertain how far the treason 
 had extended and whether it might not be successful, Wash- 
 ington ordered the Pennsylvania Line to the place of danger 
 and gave them charge of that post. The first and second 
 brigades marched from Tappan at the instant that the order 
 came, leaving their tents standing, without taking time to 
 call in their guards and detachments, and hastened to seize 
 the pass at Smith's White House, where they could dispute 
 the advance of the enemy or retire to West Point as the 
 situation demanded. Wayne, with the rest of the line, 
 taking care to see that no more of the enemy passed up the 
 river, seized the pass at Storms, from which a road in their 
 rear ran to West Point, over which he could move rapidly 
 and send the artillery and baggage. The order was re- 
 ceived at one o'clock in the morning. At two they were 
 on the march. It was a dark night, but without a halt 
 they pushed ahead over the mountains " sixteen miles in 
 four hours," and by sunrise were holding the passes. 
 Washington in joyful surprise ejaculating " All is safe 
 and I again am happy," went to bed after a long and 
 uneasy watch 
 
 A few months later occurred that emeute which the 
 writers of books have strangely been pleased to call " the 
 revolt of the Pennsylvania line." In the latter part of 1780 
 the line had under arms two thousand and five men and 
 they constituted, according to Dr. Stille, as nearly as may 
 be, two-thirds of the entire army. According to an esti- 
 mate of Washington, they were one-third of his forces, and 
 he said the army was " dwindling into nothing," and that 
 
Anthony Wayne, 23 
 
 the officers, as well as the men, were renouncing the ser- 
 vice. Within nine months one hundred and sixty-eight 
 officers, including, however, only one from Pennsylvania, 
 had resigned. It is altogether plain that in one way or 
 another, for some reason about which it is unnecessary to 
 inquire, in the main the troops from the other colonies had 
 returned to their homes. 
 
 It was of the utmost importance for the success of the 
 Continental cause that the men then in the service should 
 be retained, even if in doing so the timbers of the ship had 
 to be strained. The men in the line had been enlisted for 
 " three years, or daring the war." There can be but very 
 little doubt as to the meaning of this contract. The only 
 reasonable construction is that they were to remain at most 
 for the three years, but if the war should end during that 
 period, the government, having no longer use for their 
 services, should be at liberty to discharge them. As it 
 happened, the war lasted beyond the three years and it 
 suited the necessities of the Government to act upon the 
 assumption that " during the war" meant a time without 
 limit. A large proportion of these men had been enlisted 
 in 1776 and 1777, and therefore their terms of service had 
 long expired and they were being held without warrant of 
 law. Moreover, cold weather had come upon them, and 
 in the language of Wayne, " the distressed situation of the 
 soldiers for want of clothing beggars all description." They 
 had no money for their families and Washington wrote that 
 there had been a " total want of pay for nearly twelve 
 months." No gentle remedy would have served any pur- 
 pose in such a situation. There arose among them a hero 
 with the plebeian name of William Bowser, but imbued 
 with the spirit that won the war of the Revolution, a ser- 
 geant of the Tenth Pennsylvania Regiment. With every 
 probability of being shot to death and covered with igno- 
 miny, with the nicest propriety of conduct, with a certain 
 rude eloquence, he confronted Anthony Wayne, George 
 Washington, the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Coun- 
 
24 Anthony Wayne. 
 
 cil, and the Continental Congress. He was absolutely right 
 as to his contentions, and musket in hand, he gained his 
 cause by force, over the heads of them all, and brought 
 about a relief from the difficulties that encompassed them. 
 About nine o'clock in the night of the first of January, 
 1781, the line arose eji masse, formed on parade with their 
 arms and without their ofiicers, took possession of the pro- 
 visions and ammunition, seized six pieces of artillery, took 
 the horses from the stables, swept the ground with round 
 shot and grape, and proposed to march to Philadelphia and 
 see to it that their grievances were redressed. Some of the 
 officers who tried to stem the torrent were killed. Some 
 of the men were stricken with swords and espontoons and 
 their bodies trampled beneath the hoofs of the horses. 
 Then there were conferences. Joseph Reed, President of 
 Pennsylvania, and the Congress began to stir themselves 
 and to make strenuous efforts to meet the troubles of the 
 situation. For two weeks the men kept up a perfect disci- 
 pline and permitted Wayne, with Colonels Butler and 
 Stewart, to come and go among them. Sir Henry Clinton 
 sent two emissaries to them -wdth a written proposition to 
 afford them protection, to pay in gold all the arrears of 
 wages due from the Congress, and to exempt them from all 
 military service. . It was no doubt a tempting offer. It 
 would have ended the war, and the Colonies would have 
 remained dependencies. These patriots were not made of 
 such stuff. They at once handed over to Washington the 
 British agents, who were on the twelfth promptly hanged. 
 Reed had the indelicacy to offer a reward in money, which 
 Bowser declined because the spies had been surrendered 
 " for the zeal and love of our country." In the end the 
 Government discharged twelve hundred and fifty men whose 
 terms had expired, thus admitting its delinquency, gave to 
 each poor fellow a pair of shoes, an overall and a shirt, and 
 promised that the " arrearages of pay (were) to be made up 
 as soon as circumstances will admit." The greater number 
 of the men willingly reenlisted and Israel went back to its 
 
Anthony Wayne. 25 
 
 tents. " The patli we tread is justice and our footsteps 
 founded upon honor," announced Sergeant Bowser. 
 
 The war now drifted to the southward and Wayne with 
 eight hundred of the Pennsylvania line appeared in Vir- 
 ginia. Washington ordered the line to be transferred to 
 the Southern Army, and wishing a brigadier to go with the 
 first detachment so as to be ready to form the whole, wrote 
 to Wayne: "This duty of course devolves upon you." 
 Lafayette, then in Virginia, warmly expressed his gratifi- 
 cation and Greene did not hesitate to declare : " You must 
 know you are the Idle [Idol] of the legion." 
 
 A tragedy preceded the movement of the troops into the 
 campaign. As has been shown, they had been promised 
 that the arrearages of their wages would be paid to them. 
 The money came while they were in York, in Pennsylvania, 
 but it was the paper of the Continental Congress. Accord- 
 ing to Wayne this paper was then worth about one-seventh 
 of its face value, and the people of the neighborhood de- 
 clined to accept it in exchange for what they had to sell. 
 On the twenty-fourth of May a few men on the right of 
 each regiment, when formed in line, called out that they 
 wanted real, and not ideal, money," and that " they were 
 no longer to be trifled with." These men were ordered to 
 retire to their tents, and they refused to go. The officers, 
 who had come prepared, promptly knocked them down and 
 put them in confinement, a court-martial was ordered on 
 the spot, the trial proceeded before the soldiers paraded 
 under arms, and in the course of a few hours the accused 
 were convicted of mutiny and shot. Says Wayne : " Whether 
 by design or accident the particular friends and messmates 
 of the culprits were their executioners." Our patriotic fore- 
 fathers of the Revolutionary War were not altogether gentle 
 and mild-mannered persons. To Polly, whose tender heart 
 must have been moved by the painful recital, he explained : 
 "I was obliged to make an exemplary punishment, which 
 will have a very happy effect." But we find more relief in 
 a letter he wrote about the same time to Nicholson, the 
 
26 Anthony Wayne. 
 
 paymaster : " My feelings will not permit me to see the 
 widows and orphans of brave and worthy soldiers who have 
 fought, bled and died under my own eye, deprived of those 
 rights they are so justly entitled to." His careless servant 
 Philip lost the greater part of his table linen and napkins; his 
 carriage and its horses, his baggage wagon with its four horses, 
 a driver and four soldiers were at the plantation of Colonel 
 Simm; " But hark, the ear piercing fife, the spirit stirring 
 drum, and all the pomp and glorious circumstance of war," 
 summoned him to horse, and away they hurried to Vir- 
 ginia, crossing the Potomac with artillery and baggage upon 
 four little boats, one of which sank, drowning a few men, 
 and reaching Leesburg, a distance of thirty miles, in two 
 days. On another day, when there was no river to cross, 
 they marched twenty-two miles. As had grown to become 
 customary, in the Virginia campaign as elsewhere, Wayne 
 went to the front. On the twenty-fifth of June Lafiiyette 
 wrote : " Having given you the command of our advanced 
 corps, consisting of Butler's advance and your Pennsylva- 
 nians, I request you to dispose of them in the best way you 
 think proper," 
 
 Cornwallis had his headquarters at Portsmouth and held 
 control of the peninsula between the York and the James 
 rivers, while Lafayette, whose force was much inferior, 
 marched hither and* yon in an effort to prevent the British 
 detachments from getting supplies and if possible to cut 
 them off and effect their capture. On the sixth of July 
 what he thought to be the coveted opportunity arose. In- 
 formation came that Cornwallis, in moving down the James 
 River, had left his rear guard on the eastern bank near 
 Green Spring, and that his army was divided with a river 
 between. Lafayette ordered Wayne, with eight hundred 
 men, nearly all of tliem from Pennsylvania, and three field 
 pieces, to make an attack upon this rear guard. After 
 crossing a swamp by means of a causeway, and coming 
 upon the enemy, they discovered too late that the informa- 
 tion was erroneous, and that they were confronted by the 
 
Anthony Wayne. 27 
 
 whole British array of four thousand men under command 
 of Cornwallis himself The lion, awakened from his sleep, 
 sprang forward in a dangerous mood and soon flanking 
 parties began to envelope Wayne upon both sides. Here 
 was a serious problem — a swamp in the rear, an enemy on 
 the front, and overwhelming forces closing around. What 
 was to be done ? Lafayette hurried off an aide to bring up 
 his army, but they were five miles away, and what might 
 not be accomplished while ten miles of country were being 
 traversed ? To retreat was to be utterly lost. To stand 
 still meant ultimate capture. Situations such as these, re- 
 quiring the capacity to think accurately in the midst of 
 unexpected crises, which Hooker was unable to do at Chan- 
 cellorsville, and the character bravely and vigorously to act 
 upon the conclusions reached, in which Lee failed at Mon- 
 mouth, furnish the real test of military ability. Wayne 
 boldly ordered a charge, the troops had entire confidence 
 in his leadership, and he succeeded. Cornwallis, with an 
 estimated loss of three hundred in killed and wounded, re- 
 tired toward Portsmouth to meet his now threatened fate. 
 Of the Americans one hundred and twenty were killed or 
 wounded. Lafayette in general orders proclaimed : " The 
 general is happy in acknowledging the spirit of the detach- 
 ment commanded by General Wayne in their engagement 
 with the total of the British Army. . . . The conduct 
 of the Pennsylvania field and other officers are new 
 instances of their gallantry and talents." Greene, who 
 had a somewhat undue respect for the British general, 
 wrote : "Be a little careful and tread softly, for depend 
 upon it you have a modern Hannibal to deal with in the 
 person of Cornwallis. Oh, that I had had you with me a 
 few days ago." 
 
 Washington placidly wrote: "I cannot but feel myself 
 interested in the welfare of those to whose gallant conduct 
 I have so often been a witness," while the more youthful 
 and mercurial Light Horse Harry Lee could not restrain 
 his enthusiasm, almost shouting: " I feel the highest joy in 
 
28 Anthony Wayne. 
 
 knowing that my dear friend and his gallant corps distin- 
 guished themselves so gloriously." 
 
 The wounded soldiers lacked hospital accommodations 
 and supplies. Wayne ordered them to be furnished, and if 
 there should be trouble about the payment, " place it to my 
 account." This was not the first time he assumed indi- 
 vidual pecuniary responsibility for the relief of his men and 
 the welfare of the cause. In 1777, when there was great 
 distress for w^ant of provisions, he sent ten head of cattle to 
 the army from his own farm and had not been paid for them 
 as late as 1780. 
 
 The Continental army and the French fleet were about 
 to concentrate and close in around Cornwallis, and in keep- 
 ing him occupied and preventing the Virginia raids the 
 army of Lafayette had borne its part in bringing about the 
 result. On one occasion Wayne made, as he says, a push 
 for Tarleton at Amelia, but the doughty Colonel had pre- 
 cipitately retreated. It seems almost a pity that they could 
 not have come together. In August for six days during a 
 period of two weeks, the soldiers of Wayne had been "with- 
 out anything to eat or drink except new Indian corn and 
 water. . . . Neither salt, spirits, bacon or flour," but 
 such inconvenience did not dampen their ardor. For a 
 time Wayne had been at " Westover," and he impressed 
 his hostess, the courtly Mrs. Byrd, who wrote: "I shall 
 ever retain the highest sense of your politeness and human- 
 ity, and take every opportunity of testifying my gratitude." 
 The part he took in holding Cornwallis was important. On 
 August the thirty-first, Lafa^^ette thought that if Cornwallis 
 did not that night cross to the south of the James, twenty- 
 five ships of the Comte de Grasse having been sighted, he 
 would have to stand a siege. The Marquis sent Wayne 
 over the river and wrote, " now that you are over, I am 
 pretty easy." Wayne posted his men at Cobham on the 
 south side of the James, opposite to Cornwallis, with nothing 
 but the river between them, selected a location on James 
 Island for three thousand of the French, who had landed 
 
Anthony Wayne. 29 
 
 too far below to be effective in preventing the possible re- 
 treat of Cornwallis, and then at eight o'clock in the night 
 mounted his horse and rode ten miles to hold a conference 
 with Lafayette, who had sent an express rider to point out 
 the way. About ten o'clock he arrived at the camp, where- 
 upon the sentry upon guard shot him. He had given the 
 password, but the unfortunate guard, whose mind was 
 intent upon the proximity of the British, made a mistake. 
 In the midst of the alarm created, Wayne had great diffi- 
 culty in preventing the whole squad from firing at him. 
 The ball struck in the middle of the thigh, gra>^ed the bone, 
 and lodged on the other side. Instantaneously he felt a 
 severe pain in the foot which he called the gout. For two 
 weeks he was out of service and at the end of that time 
 could only move around in a carriage. For the guard he 
 had only sympathy, and he called him a " poor fellow," but 
 he vented his indignation upon Peters: "Your damned 
 commissary of military plays false. He has put too little 
 powder in the musket cartridges. ... If the damned 
 cartridge had a sufficiency of powder the ball would have 
 gone quite through in place of lodging." In view of the 
 pain and the patriotism we may surely, like the recording 
 angel, pardon the profanity. That he accurately understood 
 the surrounding conditions and that his judgment as to the 
 outcome was sound, appears from a letter of September the 
 twelfth, wherein he says : " We have the most glorious cer- 
 tainty of very soon obliging Lord Cornwallis with all his 
 army to surrender prisoners of war." What a contrast 
 these thoughts present to those of another letter written on 
 the same day to his httle daughter: "If you have not 
 already begun your French I wish you to request that lady 
 to put you to it as soon as possible. . . . Music, dancing, 
 drawing. . . . Apropos have you determined to hold 
 your head up ?" 
 
 One of the final attacks at Yorktown was supported by 
 two battalions of Pennsylvania troops and the second par- 
 allel of the approaching works of the besiegers they and 
 
30 Anthony Wayne. 
 
 the Maryland troops completed. When Cornwallis on the 
 nineteenth surrendered, the guards for one of his fortifica- 
 tions were selected from the French, and for the other from 
 the Pennsylvania and Maryland troops. Since the French 
 had a fleet of thirty-seven vessels of war, and an army twice 
 as numerous as that of the Colonies, "Wayne was sufliciently 
 just to concede that the victory was not altogether due "to 
 the exertions of America." 
 
 Soon after the surrender an incident occurred which 
 shows what personal manliness and appreciation of the duty 
 of a soldier actuated Wa3me in his conduct. He was suf- 
 fering from the effects of his recent wound and asked for 
 a short leave of absence. Washington, who was himself 
 about to go north to Philadelphia, where he remained 
 until March, but whose purpose was to send Wayne to the 
 South where the war still lingered, gave a not very cheer- 
 ful assent. Whereupon Wayne wrote: "As a friend I told 
 you that my feehngs were hurt. As a soldier I am always 
 ready to submit to difficulties. . . . Your Excellency 
 puts it upon a ground which prevents me from accepting," 
 and getting into a carriage, with such rapidity of progress 
 as was practicable, he made his way to Greene in South 
 Carolina along with the Pennsylvania line. 
 
 Greene sent him to Georgia, and much to his regret, 
 without his old troops. However, he had about four hun- 
 dred dragoons, one hundred and seventy infantry, a detach- 
 ment of field artillery, and such mihtia as could be raised 
 from time to time. The British had possession of Savannah 
 with thirteen hundred regulars, five hundred militia, and 
 an indefinite number of refugees and Creek and Cherokee 
 Indians. The people of Georgia were so impoverished that 
 the Legislature authorized the Governor to seize ten negroes 
 and sell them in order to secure his salary. The country 
 below the Briar Creek between the Ogeechee and Savannah 
 rivers had become a complete desert. The Whigs and 
 Tories maintained a partisan warfare of the most desperate 
 character, in which mercy to prisoners was neither expected 
 
Anthony Wayne. 31 
 
 nor shown. Into this caldron Wayne plunged, and for the 
 first time in his career he determined for himself the features 
 of a campaign. It is interesting to observe what was ex- 
 pected of him and what were the facilities afforded him for 
 its accomplishment. At the outset Greene sounded this 
 note of warning: "Your reputation depends more on avert- 
 ing a misfortune than on achieving something very great. 
 Brilliant actions may fade, but prudent conduct never can. 
 Your reputation can receive no additional lustre from cour- 
 age, while prudential conduct will render it complete," and 
 when it came to the methods to be pursued his suggestions 
 were equally definite and helpful: " I think you should try 
 to hold out encouragement to the Tories to abandon the 
 enemy's interest and though you cannot promise positively 
 to pardon them you may promise to do all in your power 
 to procure it." In brief, Greene had nothing to offer and 
 his utmost hope was that no disaster should occur. Wayne 
 in the early part of January, 1782, threw up intrenchments 
 at a point on the Savannah River twenty-five miles above 
 the city of Savannah and established a line across to the 
 Ogeechee, intended to separate the British from their Indian 
 allies and to cut off' the sources of supplies. Immediately 
 things began to move and the prospect to brighten. Wayne 
 drafted a proclamation to be issued by the Governor of 
 Georgia offering full pardon to the Tories. At the end of 
 six weeks not an officer or soldier had had an opportunity 
 to remove his clothing, but by the twenty-sixth of January 
 the British had been driven from three of their outposts. 
 The Choctaws, on their way to Savannah, January the 
 thirtieth, were intercepted, twenty-six warriors, six white 
 men and ninety-three pack-horses captured, and while host- 
 ages were held the chiefs were sent back to their tribe with 
 messages of friendliness and peace. By the middle of 
 February the British were confined to the city. On the 
 last day of the same month he burned a lot of British 
 forage within half a mile of Savannah. On one occasion he 
 had a personal rencontre with a Creek chief, in which the 
 
32 Anthony Wayne. 
 
 chief killed his horse, and he cut down the Indian with his 
 sword. On the twenty-first of April he heard again from 
 Greene, who wrote : "General Barnwell tells me you talk 
 of taking position nearer the enemy. It is not my wish 
 you should," to which Wayne, who held a diiferent view, 
 replied : "I never had an idea of taking a position within 
 striking distance, but such a one as would tend to circum- 
 scribe the enemy without committing myself. Such a posi- 
 tion is about six miles in our front, and if I am joined by a 
 corps of gentlemen under Colonel Clarke agreeable to 
 promise, I shall take it." The next day Greene wrote that 
 there was no ammunition with which to meet the demands 
 of Wayne, that he had no arms to send, that the cartouche- 
 boxes were all in use, and ordering that Captain Gill be 
 withdrawn to join his own army. With the order recalling 
 Gill, Wayne instantly and reluctantly complied. 
 
 On the twenty-first of May the Seventh Regiment of 
 British Infantry with a force of Cavalry, Hessians, Choctaw 
 Indians and Tories moved out to the distance of four miles 
 from Savannah. In the night Wayne crossed the swamp, 
 which was thought to be a protection, attacked and routed 
 them with great loss, made a number of captures, including 
 Lieutenant Colonel Douglass and thirty horses, and the 
 next morning rode within sight of the city. 
 
 "Wise commanders always own 
 What's prosperous by their soldiers done," 
 
 and Greene expressed his pleasure by saying : "You have 
 disgraced one of the best officers the enemy have." In an 
 eflbrt to drag Greene along still further, Wayne wrote : "Do 
 let us dig the caitiffs out. It will give an eclat to our arms 
 to effect a business in which the armament of our great and 
 good ally failed." Fortunately we have more than the 
 usual amount of information concerning the minor inci- 
 dents and the manner of life through this campaign. Cap- 
 tured Indians were treated with kindness and kept in a 
 room wnth fire so that they could do their cooking. We 
 
Anthony Wayne. 83 
 
 are told by Wayne that "Cornell is a dangerous villian. 
 He must be properly secured or bought." To Polly, "my 
 dear girl," he wrote : "Tell my son when he is master of 
 his Latin grammar I will make him a present equal to his 
 sister's when she is mistress of her French." 
 
 The whole force of the militia of Georgia consisted of 
 ninety men. There were numbers of the men who had 
 nothing like a coat. There was only one camp kettle to 
 every twenty men. An officer who came to camp with a 
 letter of introduction was entertained with cold beef, rice 
 and "alligator water," but at a more happy time we catch 
 sight of "a quarter cask of Madeira wine, ten and a half 
 gallons of rum, and about two hundred weight of Mus- 
 cavado sugar." When a dragoon was scalped and his body 
 dragged about the streets of Savannah, Wayne proposed to 
 make victims of an Indian chief and a British officer. He 
 prevented Mrs. Byng, a free quadroon, from being sold as a 
 slave with her children, though her husband had been 
 executed " as a villain, a murderer and outlaw." A lady 
 asked to see him and sent him a union cockade, to which 
 he gallantly replied : "Nature has been but too partial in 
 furnishing Miss Maxwell with every power to please. Not- 
 withstanding these dangerous circumstances, the general as 
 a soldier cannot decline the interview." The personal ser- 
 vant of the British Captain Hughes, who had been captured, 
 he on request sent back, and the captain appreciated "the 
 uncommon attention and extreme courtesy." 
 
 Through it all Greene kept up a constant nagging. 
 "You will please order the same issues as are directed in 
 this army. I am willing the troops should have what is 
 sufficient, but by no means more," and at another time, "I 
 was told you proposed to get some clothing from Charles- 
 town and pay in rice. ... I Avish you therefore to 
 avoid it nor attempt anything of the kind," were some of 
 his cheering messages. On the sixth of June he rather 
 overdid himself, writing : " Far less regularity and economy 
 has been made use of in the subsistance of your troops than 
 
34 Anthony Wayne, 
 
 I could have wished. ... I find one pound and a 
 quarter of beef and one pound and a quarter of rice is a 
 sufiicient ration for any soldier . . . both men and 
 oflicers should be allowed a reasonable subsistence, but 
 nothing is more pernicious than indulgence." In one 
 sense no letter was ever more happily conceived. It called 
 forth and secured for our benefit a pen sketch by Anthony 
 Wayne of one of his campaigns, which is a contribution to 
 historical literature. In response Wayne said : " I have 
 received yours of the 6th inst. on the subject of rations 
 and economy. ... I am extremely obliged to you for 
 the anxiety you express for every part of my conduct to 
 appear in the most favorable light. ... On the 19th 
 of January we passed the Savannah River in three little 
 canoes, swimming the horses; that by manoeuvres we 
 obliged the enemy to abandon every outpost and to retire 
 into the town of Savannah ; that we found the country a 
 perfect desert, neither meat or bread kind except what was 
 within the influence of their arms; that notwithstanding 
 this circumstance and surrounded by hostile savages we 
 subsisted ourselves from the stores of the enemy at the 
 point of the sword until with the assistance of a few re- 
 claimed citizens, artificers and slaves we built a number of 
 large boats and rebuilt twelve capital bridges for the pur- 
 pose of transportation, and three respectable redoubts to 
 enable us to hold the country, without any other expense to 
 the public than a few hundred bushels of rice and beef in 
 proportion, which beef as well as at least one-third of all 
 that has yet been issued in this army cost the United States 
 nothing except the lives of three or four men ; the very salt 
 we used was made by ourselves, and the iron, etc., with 
 Avhich our horses were shod, boats built, wagons repaired, 
 espoutoons made and every kind of smithwork done were 
 also procured without any cost to the public except for a 
 very small proportion for which, as well as the labor, we 
 were necessitated to barter some articles of provisions. We 
 were also obliged to exchange some rice and meat for leather 
 
Anthony Wayne. 35 
 
 and thread to make and repair the horse accoutrements, 
 harness, etc., or to abandon the countr3^ . . . No army 
 was ever supported for less expense or more service rendered 
 in proportion to numbers than on the present occasion. 
 . . If severe discipline, constant duty, perpetual alarm, 
 and facing every difficulty and danger be an indulgence, I 
 candidly confess that the officers and men under my com- 
 mand have experienced it to a high degree." 
 
 At half after one o'clock on the night of June the 24th 
 the Creek Indians, with British assistance, made an attack 
 upon the post, but after the first surprise were soon routed, 
 leaving many dead, including two white men, on the field. 
 One hundred and seven horses were among the spoils, but 
 their masters, the Indian braves, were subjected to "the 
 bayonet to free us from encumbrance." 
 
 The end of it all was that, on the eleventh of July, the 
 British sailed away from Savannah to the West Indies. On 
 the twelfth Wayne, at the head of his horsemen, rode in 
 triumph through the streets of the city and the soil of 
 Georgia was never again trodden by the feet of the enemy. 
 The grateful State set apart four thousand guineas to buy 
 for Wayne a tract of land, and the captious but converted 
 Greene bore tribute before the Congress to his " singular 
 merit and exertions." 
 
 He had one further and final service to render to his 
 country in the War of the Revolution. When on the four- 
 teenth day of December, 1782, the British forces marched 
 out of the city of Charleston, leaving at last the Southern 
 colonies to rest and peace, two hundred yards in their rear 
 at the head of that part of the Continental army, bringing 
 with him promise and hope, Anthony Wayne rode into the 
 relieved city, a fitting climax to his many efl:orts and trials 
 through the eventful struggle. 
 
 The ensuing ten years Wayne spent in civil pursuits and 
 private life, endeavoring to recover from the effects of a 
 malarial fever contracted in Georgia, at one time believed 
 to be fatal, and struggling with those financial difficulties 
 
30 Anthony Wayne. 
 
 which beset men who devote their energies to the public 
 service instead of to the betterment of their own fortunes. 
 Throughout all of this period, notwithstanding the treaty 
 of peace, the embers of the war were still smouldering, and 
 it Avas not until after the close of the second contest in 1812 
 that Americans could feel secure in their independence. 
 The country west of the Ohio was occupied by Indian tribes 
 ever ready to bring devastation, destruction and desolation 
 to the homes of the border settlers, and ever incited and 
 aided by the British who held a number of posts along the 
 lakes. Washington, who had become the President of the 
 United States, selected, to command forces sent to overawe 
 them, Harmar and St. Clair in succession, and each was in 
 turn defeated, the latter with circumstances of peculiar 
 horror and dismay from the loss of such noted soldiers as 
 Butler and Crawford, the latter burned at the stake. Then 
 he sent for Anthony Wayne, gave him at last the commis- 
 sion of a major general, and placed him in command of the 
 Arm}^ of the United States. In modest and serious words 
 Wayne accepted the responsibility. " I clearly foresee that 
 it is a command which must inevitably be attended with 
 the most anxious care, fatigue, and difficulty, and from 
 which more may be expected than will be in my power to 
 perform, yet I should be wanting both in point of duty and 
 gratitude to the President were I to decline an appointment 
 however arduous to which he thought proper to nominate 
 me," was the language of his letter to the Secretary of War, 
 April 13th, 1792. 
 
 The underlying motive of the war was the determination 
 of the Indians to make the River Ohio the permanent 
 boundary between them and the United States, and the 
 fact that after the concession by Virginia of her western 
 claims the Ohio Company, under the leadership of Rufus 
 Putnam, had established a settlement within what is now 
 the State of Ohio. Within seven years fifteen hundred 
 people had been massacred. Another defeat, said the Sec- 
 retary of War with auspicious suggestion, would be ruinous 
 
Anthony Wayne. 37 
 
 to " the reputation of the government." In its origin, in 
 its conduct, in its results, and even in its details, the ex- 
 pedition was almost a repetition of the march of C?esar 
 into Gaul. The tierce savages of a vast and unknown ter- 
 ritory were about to be subjected, and an empire of civiliza- 
 tion to be erected upon the lands over which they held 
 sway. Wayne organized his army in Pittsburg and some 
 such forecast must have occurred to the minds of those 
 in authority, for it was called not an army but a legion. 
 This legion, it was intended, should be composed of over 
 four thousand men, but there were actually under arms 
 two thousand six hundred and thirty-one. Where it was 
 recruited appears with approximate accuracy in June, 1793, 
 when the Secretary of War sent one hundred and nineteen 
 men from Pennsylvania, one hundred and one from Vir- 
 ginia, one hundred and one from ISTew Jersey and thirty 
 from Maryland, and when Wayne issued a call for volun- 
 teers for six wrecks one hundred and sixty-six from Ohio, 
 one hundred and sixty-four from Westmoreland, one hun- 
 dred and sixty-four from Washington, eighty from Fayette, 
 and eighty-two from Allegheny, these last four being coun- 
 ties in Pennsylvania. Along with the organization of the 
 legion came the most rigid enforcement of discipline. 
 During the progress of the campaign, in which the great- 
 est vigilance w^as necessary, at least two soldiers were shot 
 to death for sleeping on their posts. When Wayne found 
 some of them drunk in the village, now the city of Cincin- 
 nati, he ordered that no passes be thereafter granted. 
 Whiskey was kept out of the camp. Careful directions 
 were issued describing the methods of meeting attacks upon 
 each flank and upon the rear. He placed reliance on the 
 bayonet and the sword, and urged his men not to forget 
 that "the savages are only formidable to a flying enemy." 
 The crowns of the hats of the men were covered with bear 
 skin. He insisted upon cleanliness of person and regularity 
 of diet. "Breakfast at eight o'clock, dine at one; meat 
 shall be boiled and soup made of it ... a good old 
 
38 Anthony Wayne. 
 
 soldier will never attempt to roast or fry his meat." Every 
 day the field officers, sub-lieutenants and captains of the 
 guard dined with him, and his salary did not pay the ex- 
 penses of the table. One hundred lashes with w^re cats 
 were sometimes inflicted as punishment. He adroitly sowed 
 and cultivated dissensions among the Indians, having in his 
 army the chief Cornplanter as well as ninety Choctaws and 
 twenty-five Chickasaws. The war lasted for over two years, 
 and we are enabled to appreciate the condition of wilderness 
 in which it was conducted when we learn that he was with- 
 out communication from the Secretary of War in Philadel- 
 phia from December to April. The British, contrary to the 
 provisions of the treaty of peace, had established certain 
 posts within the country and Wayne was given authority if 
 he found it necessary to dislodge them. To his wisdom 
 and discretion, therefore, was trusted the grave question of 
 renewing the war with England. Just before the march an 
 interesting incident occurred. On the first of June, 1792, 
 he granted a leave of absence to Alexander Purdy, a soldier 
 in Captain Heth's company, in order that he might assist 
 in printing at Pittsburg a pamphlet written by Hugh H. 
 Brackenridge, " the first publication of the kind ever pro- 
 posed in the western country." 
 
 Late in the summer of 1792 he moved his army twenty- 
 seven miles down the Ohio River and there encamped for 
 the winter. In May of 1793 he advanced as far as the 
 site of Cincinnati. Like all human movements in which 
 various forces are concerned, there was much delay due to 
 differences of views and divergences of counsels. Wayne 
 had reached the conclusion that we should never have a 
 permanent peace until the Indians were taught to respect 
 the power of the United States, and until the British were 
 compelled to give up their posts along the shores of the 
 lakes. In Philadelphia the Government was timid about 
 entering upon the war, and previous defeats had made it 
 fearful of the outcome. Knox, the Secretary of War, wrote 
 that the sentiments of the people " are adverse in the ex- 
 
Anthony Wayne. 39 
 
 treme to an Indian War," and again " it is still more neces- 
 sary than heretofore that no oftensive operations should be 
 undertaken against the Indians," and finally that a " defeat 
 at the present time and under the present circumstances 
 would be pernicious in the highest degree to the interests 
 of the country." While the hostile Indians were perfecting 
 their combinations and holding their pow-wows with Simon 
 Girty and an aide of the British Colonel Simcoe, who prom- 
 ised them protection as well as arms, ammunition, and pro- 
 visions, the Government sent B. Lincoln, Beverly Randolph 
 and Timothy Pickering to Fort Erie to negotiate for peace. 
 The result of these efforts was that after gaining what time 
 was needed the Indians refused to treat at all, and the duty 
 fell upon Wayne to see that the commissioners reached 
 home with their scalps on their heads, for which they for- 
 mally gave him thanks. To make a general war was the 
 conclusion of the tribes. Wayne then wrote to Knox: 
 " Knowing the critical situation of our infant nation and 
 feeling for the honor and reputation of the government 
 which I shall support with my latest breath, you may rest 
 assured that I will not commit the legion unnecessarily." 
 
 By the thirteenth of October he had marched to a point 
 on a branch of the Miami Eiver, eighty miles north of Cin- 
 cinnati, where he found a camp which he fortified and called 
 Greenville and there he remained through the winter. The 
 march was so rapid and the order maintained so perfect, 
 that the Indian scouts were bafiied. From there he sent a 
 corps with guides and spies six miles further along the trail 
 of Sarmar to secure "intelligence and scalps." He Hkewise 
 detached a force to go to the field where St. Clair had been 
 defeated, to bury the bones of the dead and erect a fort 
 called Fort Recovery. 
 
 In May a lieutenant with a convoy gallantly charged and 
 repelled an assault. 
 
 On the thirtieth of June about seventeen hundred of the 
 enemy made a desperate attempt to capture an escort under 
 the walls of Fort Recovery and to carry the fort by storm, 
 
40 Anthony Wayne. 
 
 keeping up a heavy fire and making repeated efforts for 
 two d&ja, but were finally repulsed. Twenty-one soldiers 
 were killed and twenty-nine wounded, and no doubt both 
 sides were animated by the memories of the misfortunes of 
 St. Clair at the same place. A few days later, after receiv- 
 ing some reenforcements of mounted men from Kentuck}-, 
 he marched seventy miles into the heart of the Indian coun- 
 try, built Fort Defiance at the junction of the Le Glaize and 
 Miami rivers, and then within sight of a British fort on the 
 Miami made his preparations for the battle which was in- 
 / evitable. He had marched nearly four hundred miles 
 ' through the country of an enemy, both watchful and vin- 
 dictive ; had cut a road through the woods the entire way, 
 upon a route longer, more remote and more surrounded 
 with dangers than that of Braddock; had overcome the 
 almost insuperable difficulties of securing supplies ; had 
 built three forts, and now had reached a position where 
 the issue must be decided by arms. On the morning ot 
 August 20th, 1794, the army advanced five miles, with the 
 River Miami on the right, a brigade of mounted volunteers 
 on their left, a light brigade on their rear, and a selected 
 battalion of horsemen in the lead. They came to a place 
 where a tornado had swept through the forest, and thrown 
 down the trees, since called the Fallen Timbers, and where 
 the twisted trunks and limbs lay in such profusion as to 
 impede the movements of the cavalry. Here the Indians, 
 two thousand in number, encouraged by the proximity of 
 the British fort, determined to make a stand. Hidden in 
 the woods and the high grass, they opened fire upon the 
 mounted men in the front and succeeded in driving them 
 back to the main army. The enemy were formed in three 
 lines in supporting distance of each other, extending for 
 about two miles at right angles to the river and were pro- 
 tected and covered by the woods. Wayne formed his force 
 in two lines. He soon perceived from the firing and its 
 direction that they were strong in numbers on his front and 
 were endeavoring to turn his left flank. He met this situa- 
 
Anthony Wayne. 41 
 
 tion by ordering up the rear line to support the first, by 
 sending a force by a circuitous route to turn the right ot 
 the enemy, by sending another force at the same time along 
 the river to turn their left, and by a direct charge with 
 trailed arms in the front to drive the Indians from their 
 covert with the bayonet, his favorite w^eapon. The Indians 
 could not resist the onset, broke in confusion, and were 
 driven two miles in the course of an hour through the woods 
 with great loss. Their dead bodies and British muskets 
 lay scattered in all directions. The next day Wayne rode 
 forward and inspected the British fort. The Major in com- 
 mand wanted to know " in what light am I to view your 
 making such near approaches to this garrison ?" to which 
 Wayne replied that, had the occasion arisen, the fort would 
 not have much impeded " the progress of the victorious 
 army." All of the villages, corn fields, and houses, includ- 
 ing that of McKee, the British Indian agent, within a scope 
 of one hundred miles were burned and destroyed. 
 
 American annals disclose no such other victory over the 
 savage tribes. For the next quarter of a century there 
 were peace and safety along the border. It secured for 
 civilization the territory between the Ohio and the Missis- 
 sippi rivers. It made possible the development of such 
 states as Ohio, Illinois and Indiana. When the informa- 
 tion reached London the British Government, recognizing 
 that the cause of the Indians was hopeless, ordered the 
 evacuation of the posts at Detroit, Oswego and Niagara. 
 Twenty years later there was written in praise of Perry's 
 victory on Lake Erie that it was only second in importance 
 to the West to that of Wayne at the Fallen Timbers. 
 
 Two weeks later Wayne was crushed to the earth by a 
 falling tree, so much bruised as to cause great pain and 
 hemorrhages, and only the fortunate location of a stump, 
 on which the tree partially lodged, saved his life. 
 
 After the treaty of cession and peace had been executed, 
 and after an absence in the wilderness for three years, he 
 returned home in 1795, everywhere hailed with loud acclaim 
 
42 Anthony Wayne. 
 
 as the hero of the time and received in Philadelphia by the 
 City Troop and with salvos from cannon, ringing of bells, 
 and fireworks. 
 
 His last battle had been fought. His work was done. 
 " Both body and mind are fatigued by the contest," were 
 his pathetic words. Soon afterward the President sent him 
 as commissioner to Detroit and on his return he died at 
 Presque Isle, now Erie, December the 15th, 1796. 
 
 We have this description of his personal appearance: "He 
 was above what is termed the middle stature and well pro- 
 portioned. His hair was dark. His forehead was high and 
 handsomely formed. His eyes were dark hazel, intelligent, 
 quick and penetrating. His nose inclined to be aquiHne." 
 
 His was a bold spirit. His six wounds indicate that he 
 did not hesitate to expose his person when need arose, but 
 he possessed beside that moral courage which enabled him 
 to move with steady step when confronted with diflicult and 
 complicated propositions where the weak waver. Neither 
 the fortifications at Stony Point nor the unknown wilds of 
 Ohio made him uncertain. No man was potent enough 
 either in military or civil affairs to give him aflfront with 
 impunity. He was on the verge of a duel ^vith Lee, with 
 St. Clair, and with some others. He did not hesitate on 
 occasion to say " damn." At the same time he was almost 
 sentimental in his affections. Attached to his wife, who 
 was ever to him " Polly," or " my dear girl," he wanted 
 her to come to him in camp, and he never wrote to her with- 
 out telling her to kiss for him his " little son and daughter." 
 A negro boy waited upon the officers of the light infantry, 
 and when the corps was dissolved they determined to sell 
 him. " The little naked negro boy, Sandy," wrote "Wayne, 
 " so often ordered to be sold, is in my possession and newly 
 clothed. I shall take care of him." 
 
 He had healthy cravings. He was fond of porter and 
 Madeira, of venison, cheese and sugar, of dress, of the ap- 
 proval of his fellow men, of the glory that follows suc- 
 cessful military achievement. He drank tea as well as wine. 
 
Anthony Wayne. 43 
 
 He could be prudent and even diplomatic. Had he rushed 
 upon the Pennsj^lvania line when they were aroused and 
 angry, he would have been killed. He opposed in 1778 
 chasing after Clinton in Connecticut. Contrary to the 
 thought of "Washington, he ordered a regiment to follow 
 towards Stony Point for the purpose of having the men 
 who were to make the charge strengthened by a sense of 
 support. When the irritated Colonel Humpton claimed 
 that Wayne's servant had taken his puppy and demanded 
 its return Wayne presented his compliments, denied the 
 facts, declined to " dispute so trifling a matter," and sent 
 the dog. He refused to lend his pistols to his friend, Major 
 Fishbourne, who wanted to fight a duel. He had certain 
 philosophical tendencies. "For law is like war — a trade to 
 a common capacity, but a science to a man of abilities," 
 he wrote to his son, and again, "let integrity, industry and 
 probity be your constant guides." He did not believe that 
 the Colonies could depend upon the aid of France, but 
 contended that they must rest " on the firm ground of our 
 own virtue and prowess." It was because of these tenden- 
 cies that he was so particular about the discipline and dress 
 of the soldiers, so insistent upon the provision for their 
 needs, so reliant upon the moral efiect of the cutting edge 
 of a weapon, and so careful to cultivate the pride and esprit 
 of the corps. He always wanted Pennsylvania troops to be 
 with him in his campaigns, not that he intended to reflect 
 upon those of other states, but because they and he had 
 learned to trust each other and knew the value of the 
 association. His willingness to encounter danger and to 
 take the risks of responsibility was by no means all due to 
 to the impulse of a military temperament. He saw, and 
 more than once made his vision plain, that many and per- 
 haps the most of those around him were subservient in 
 thought and feeling. They had so long regarded the English 
 as masters that when they met them as foes they had more 
 respect for the enemy than confidence in themselves. He 
 knew that the first step toward independence must be an 
 
44 Anthony Wayne. 
 
 enlargement of soul. He called no Englishman a Hannibal, 
 and when he met the pseudo Roman on the James, struck 
 him with a spear, and after his capture invited him to dine. 
 The sui)reme contribution of Wayne to the American 
 cause was that more than any other general he gave it 
 inspiration. He proved that an English force could be 
 assailed and compelled to surrender in a stronghold regarded 
 as impregnable, and his conduct affected for good the whole 
 army. The most diffident were given courage by the 
 example of Wayne. 
 
 His letters, while lacking in literary skill and somewhat 
 too roseate in their style, unlike much of the correspond- 
 ence of the period, which is stilted, stiff and vague, always 
 give vivid pictures and make entirely plain the thought he 
 purposed to convey. I^o one can read them intelligently 
 without being impressed with the accuracy of their reason- 
 ing and the correctness of his judgment upon military prob- 
 lems. He understood the conditions in Georgia better than 
 Greene. He comprehended the situation in Ohio more 
 clearly than Knox. The orders of Washington, Schuyler, 
 Lafayette and Greene show very plainly that when they 
 were met by a difficult situation, requiring strenuous mental 
 and physical effort, they were all disposed to call for the 
 assistance of Wayne. Every general under whom he 
 served sent him to the front. He had the advance at Ger- 
 mantown, and Monmouth, and on the James in Virginia. 
 He was the first to enter Savannah and Charleston. No 
 other general of the Revolution had so varied an experience. 
 Greene came the nearest to him in this respect, but he 
 neither fought so far i^forth nor so far South, He was the 
 only one of them who added to his reputation as a soldier 
 after the close of the Revolution. The most dang-erous 
 event that can happen to a successful general is to be 
 required to command under different conditions in a later 
 war. History is strewn with the wrecks of reputations lost 
 under such circumstances. Wayne was subjected to this 
 supreme test, and still he triumphed. He is the only gen- 
 
Anthony Wayne. 45 
 
 eral of the Revolutionary War in whose achievements the 
 great West, rapidly becoming the source of power in our 
 government, can claim to have participation. The final 
 popular judgment upon all questions is sure to reach the 
 truth. As time has rolled along most of the generals of 
 the Revolution have become as vague as shadows, but 
 Wayne remains instinct with life and the heart yet warms 
 at the recital of his deeds. No Commonwealth in America 
 but has a county or town bearing his name. New York 
 has made a State park of Stony Point, and ere long Ohio 
 will do the like for the Fallen Timbers. One of the most 
 inspiring of our lyrics written in the stress of the War of 
 the Rebellion tells hoAV " The bearded men are marchino-in 
 the land of Anthony Wayne." 
 
 By no chance, therefore, does it happen that his statue is 
 set upon the centre of the outer line at Valley Forge. It is 
 where he stood in the cold and the drear of that gloomy 
 and memorable winter, and the place he held on many a 
 field of battle. This hallowed camp-ground, where was 
 best shown that spirit of endurance and persistence which 
 created a nation, shall tell, through the coming ages, to the 
 future generations of men, the story of the bold soldier and 
 consummate commander whose place seemed ever to be 
 where the danger was the most threatening, and prudence 
 and skill were the most essential. 
 
ANTHONT IV^TNE 
 
 BY 
 SAMUEL W. PENNYPACKER 
 
 Printed by 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 
 1908 
 
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